The Mayo Clinic Handbook For Happiness

"Offers a straightforward plan anyone can implement across 10 weeks. Combining groundbreaking insights from neuroscience and psychology, and wisdom from philosophy and spirituality, Dr. Sood reveals how to reduce everyday anxiety and find greater fulfillment in life."--Back cover.

Happiness is a habit. For some of us, that habit is a natural inclination; for others, it is a learned behavior. The Mayo Clinic Handbook for Happiness combines wisdom from neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, and spirituality to help you choose contentment. Dr. Amit Sood's actionable ten–week program has helped tens of thousands of people reduce anxiety and find greater fulfillment in life. Each of the book's four sections is filled with practical insights and easy–to–implement exercises. You'll understand why your brain struggles with finding happiness and what real–world practices can help you to better manage stress and choose peace and contentment instead. Praise for the Stress–Free Living Program: “This book can change your life.”–Dr. Andrew Weil “An important innovative approach to well-being.”–Dr. Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence

In this book, Amit Sood, M.D., M.Sc., a Mayo Clinic specialist in stress and resiliency, reveals how the mind's instinctive restlessness and shortsightedness generate stress and anxiety and presents strategies for living a more peaceful life. Have you ever driven several miles without noticing anything on the road, or read a page in a book without registering any of it? Do the day's worries and disappointments crowd your mind as you're trying to fall asleep at night? Do you feel stressed much of the time and aren't sure how to find peace? This book is based on the highly popular stress management program offered at Mayo Clinic that Dr. Sood developed after two decades of work with tens of thousands of people. Drawing on groundbreaking brain research, Dr. Sood helps you understand the brain's two modes and how an imbalance between them produces unwanted stress. From this basis, you learn skills that will help you: Develop deep and sustained attentionPractice gratitude, compassion and acceptanceLive a meaningful lifeCultivate nurturing relationshipsAchieve your highest potential All of these concepts are weaved into a practical and fun journey that has been tested in numerous scientific studies, with consistently positive results. Take the first step to discover greater peace and joy for you and your loved ones. "Dr. Sood has put together a simple, secular and structured program that is anchored in science, is free of rituals and dogmas, and is accessible to everyone. This book can change your life." -- Dr. Andrew Weil "An important innovative approach to well-being, one we all should know about." -- Dr. Daniel Goleman

In this book, Amit Sood, M.D., M.Sc., a Mayo Clinic specialist in stress and resiliency, reveals how the mind's instinctive restlessness and shortsightedness generate stress and anxiety and presents strategies for living a more peaceful life. Have you ever driven several miles without noticing anything on the road, or read a page in a book without registering any of it? Do the day's worries and disappointments crowd your mind as you're trying to fall asleep at night? Do you feel stressed much of the time and aren't sure how to find peace? This book is based on the highly popular stress management program offered at Mayo Clinic that Dr. Sood developed after two decades of work with tens of thousands of people. Drawing on groundbreaking brain research, Dr. Sood helps you understand the brain's two modes and how an imbalance between them produces unwanted stress. From this basis, you learn skills that will help you: Develop deep and sustained attentionPractice gratitude, compassion and acceptanceLive a meaningful lifeCultivate nurturing relationshipsAchieve your highest potential All of these concepts are weaved into a practical and fun journey that has been tested in numerous scientific studies, with consistently positive results. Take the first step to discover greater peace and joy for you and your loved ones. "Dr. Sood has put together a simple, secular and structured program that is anchored in science, is free of rituals and dogmas, and is accessible to everyone. This book can change your life." -- Dr. Andrew Weil "An important innovative approach to well-being, one we all should know about." -- Dr. Daniel Goleman

SMART is an innovative, fun, engaging, and simple approach toward twenty-first-century stress. The program shares with you a set of transformative principles that can help enhance your relationships, make sustained behavior change, improve work experience, enhance health, resilience, and wellbeing, reverse burnout, and find greater happiness. SMART achieves these goals by taking you on a backstage tour of the brain to help you understand some of the brain's automatic mechanisms that generate and multiply stress. In four simple steps, SMART then enables you to take back control of your brain, so you live your days with greater intentionality, courage, hope, and inspiration. In developing SMART, we have synthesized information from tens of thousands of research studies, the experience of hundreds of thousands of patients and learners, and wisdom collected by Dr. Sood in his journey across two continents over three decades. We have tested the resulting approach in over twenty clinical trials. The resulting program has reached over half a million people and adopted by some of the most reputed organizations in the world. SMART is scalable and practical and offers skills that won't crowd your already clogged inbox. In the words of Dr. Sood, "We aren't adding more milk to your already filled cup. We are adding chocolate powder to the milk, so it doesn't increase the volume, but changes the entire flavor!" Dr. Amit Sood is internationally recognized for his work on stress, resilience, mindfulness, happiness, and wellbeing. A Professor of Medicine (Retd.), Dr. Sood serves as the Executive Director of the Global Center for Resiliency and Wellbeing. Resiliencetrainer.com; Resilientoption.com

An insightful and powerful look at the magic of summer camp—and why it is so important for children to be away from home . . . if only for a little while. In an age when it’s the rare child who walks to school on his own, the thought of sending your “little ones” off to sleep-away camp can be overwhelming—for you and for them. But parents’ first instinct—to shelter their offspring above all else—is actually depriving kids of the major developmental milestones that occur through letting them go—and watching them come back transformed. In Homesick and Happy, renowned child psychologist Michael Thompson, PhD, shares a strong argument for, and a vital guide to, this brief loosening of ties. A great champion of summer camp, he explains how camp ushers your children into a thrilling world offering an environment that most of us at home cannot: an electronics-free zone, a multigenerational community, meaningful daily rituals like group meals and cabin clean-up, and a place where time simply slows down. In the buggy woods, icy swims, campfire sing-alongs, and daring adventures, children have emotionally significant and character-building experiences; they often grow in ways that surprise even themselves; they make lifelong memories and cherished friends. Thompson shows how children who are away from their parents can be both homesick and happy, scared and successful, anxious and exuberant. When kids go to camp—for a week, a month, or the whole summer—they can experience some of the greatest maturation of their lives, and return more independent, strong, and healthy.

Argues that happiness can be a learned and cultivated behavior, explaining how every person possesses at least five of twenty-four profiled strengths that can be built on in order to improve life.

Two-time Olympic gold medalist Megan Quann Jendrick and her husband and personal trainer offer a complete training regimen -- including a diet program -- that will enable everyone to achieve the body of their dreams through swimming. Elite-level swimmers share a common trait -- their toned, shapely bodies. Get Wet, Get Fit shows how anyone, regardless of age or size, can use swimming to get into the best condition of their lives. The Jendricks offer detailed instructions along with underwater photographs that illustrate how to achieve proper form and technique for the four basic strokes -- backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, and freestyle. But unlike the average training manual or how-to book, Get Wet, Get Fit also provides: Training regimens for everyone from beginners to Olympic-level competitors, including dynamic drills for strengthening, fat loss, and endurance Physique-building workout routines (with and without weights) for dry land A complete diet plan, including tempting recipes and menus (swimmers need carbohydrates, so this is a diet to love) Tips from world-class swimmers Low impact and gentle on the joints, swimming is one of the most enjoyable and exhilarating ways to exercise, but Get Wet, Get Fit shows how it can also be one of the most effective ways to get your body into top shape.